Blog 10

What was interesting to me about this essay after my first time reading it, was that my initial opinion and reaction about Strawson was competently different than my peers. My first time reading “I am not a story,” I actually felt as if Strawson offered a fresh perceptive on narratives. See, I conciser myself to be an extremely narrative person so I related very strongly with the perspective in which Beck wrote her essay. So, when I was introduced to Strawson’s side of the argument, my brain skimmed over some possible flaws in his method of argumentation and I found myself focusing more on his opinion and how he perceives narratives as a non-narrative individual. Because this perspective was all new to me and I am always interesting in hearing other people’s opinions on things. However, during the discussion with a small group of my peers, I learned that all of them strongly disliked this read, found it bias and even annoying. With that being said, I began my second read-through of Strawson’s essay with the intention of attempting to seek out moments in the reading in which Strawson was bias and even where he, as one of my peers mentioned “made a mockery of narrative individuals” so I could further understand why they would feel so strongly against ‘I am not a story.” And by default, looking for these moments in the reading allowed me to notice some things I hadn’t when I was blinded by my own curiosity my first time through. In fact I took note of multiple things that my peers pointed out, including, and possibly most importantly; the fact that Strawson provided no evidence to support his perspective, and only provided sources from an opposing standpoint so he could pick apart the “flaws” within them.